Jackie Robinson Parkway

The New York City parkway system is the collective work of two prominent park minds of the modern age, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) and Robert Moses (1888-1981). Olmsted is best known for designing Central Park (1861) with Calvert Vaux (1824-1895), but his impact on the future of city planning competes with even that monumental achievement.

During the second half of the 19th century, Olmsted emerged as the nation’s foremost advocate of public parks in urban locales. He recognized the ill effects of overcrowding in America’s cities, attributing poor health, unsanitary conditions, and crime to the smothering effect of urban landscapes. He sought to improve the quality of city life through the addition of parks, which, he theorized, would replicate the unbridled tranquility of nature.